Hi all,
I am new to this site and stumbled across it whilst trying to make some sense out of my life. I am probably going to sound pretty incoherent and pathetic but I just don't know who to talk to right now.
I have been married for 17 years. I was fairly young when I got married and it's not something I would have chosen for myself but at the time I was in a religious cult and didn't have much choice.
Don't get me wrong, I love my husband - he's a very good man and we survived the cult together and have been out of it for over 10 years. But there are major problems in our relationship which he is never willing to address. I bring them up sporadically - he gets nervous and acts like there's nothing wrong, I drop it and that's it. You might think well why bother doing something about it now but the truth is I'm not getting any younger and I don't want to look back on my life in 40 years time and think why did I waste it.
Our main problems are: - I want a child. He is infertile, won't discuss it, won't seek treatment, refuses to adopt. Pretends it's not an issue. I sometimes wonder if he just enjoys our life without a child too much, and have confronted him about it but he is evasive.
Our sex life is abysmal - always has been pretty bad but I used to put it down to the cult. However, it hasn't improved, if anything has got worse. We hardly ever have sex and if we do it's over in 2 minutes. He suffers from PE and has read about it on internet, but again refuses to seek treatment or talk to anyone about it. I have never had an orgasm in all our married life. He never asks me what I like, what he can do, etc. If I try and broach the subject he gets extremely nervous and comes even quicker the next time we try. We're now basically at the point where he sticks it in, thrusts for a couple of minutes, comes, rolls off and goes for a shower. I don't know if he thinks this is normal. He'd never had sex with anyone before and I just can't get him to open up about it. I've pretty much given up on ever having any kind of pleasurable sex life but now and again I do wonder if it would be possible with someone else.
If we do have any kind of argument or discussion he pretends it never happened. I'm always the one to bring it up and try and talk it out and basically I just don't have the energy anymore. We can carry on living alongside each other, actually more like brother and sister, for the next 40 years, but I just don't want to look back at my life with regret. If I can change something now then I will. My parents both died young and I don't want to waste my life.
I realise the above might sound really dismal. We do have a good life together, are very comfortable financially, have a lovely home, have great holidays and I do enjoy spending time with him. Which is why I find all this so hard. I know if I were to ever leave him all my friends and family would think I'm mad, but I am so lonely and so frustrated! And whenever I do think of leaving him I just contemplate the huge mess there would be with dividing assets, etc. and carry on pretending everything is wonderful. This has been going on for about 8 years now and as I said I'm not getting any younger.
Any thoughts, comments, advice would be greatly appreciated!